METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PORTABLY ENABLING AWARENESS, TOURING, AND CONFERENCING OVER THYE WORLD-WIDE WEB USING PROXIES AND SHARED-STATE SERVERS

Collaboration capabilities (both "push" and "pull" of information) are portably added to World-Wide Web content. In particular, a persistent connection is maintained to a shared state server for retrieving data via a "push" mechanism which maintains the freedom to access arbitrary Web content via the "pull" mechanism. Moreover, the collaboration is provided in a portable manner, in the same way that all other Web content is portable both across hardware platforms and across browser implementations.